


Magnetic Stars

by pxncey



Category: Fall Out Boy, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Autism, Basement Gerard Way, F/M, M/M, Mikey is a transgirl, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pete is an asshole but a really nice asshole, Teacher-Student Relationship, Trans Female Character, teacher!frank
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:17:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxncey/pseuds/pxncey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Countless psychiatrists and doctors have attempted to break into Gerard's obsessive and disassociated world, tried to rationalise his behaviour and straighten out his distorted image of the universe. But all Gerard wants in life was to be high enough to touch the stars– and to understand why in the world his English teacher has the ability to make him feel like he's already up in the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're a Bottled Star

**Author's Note:**

> (this is incomplete but i add to it regularly.)

Gerard didn’t realise he was doing it until just a few moments too late, and his legs were covered in little spots of blood again.

A rather smothering feeling of guilt stifled his lungs, and he fumbled for the tissue box on his bedside table to dab up the broken scabs on his thighs with trembling hands. He knew he ought to stop. He knew that now was the time to stop, but the sickly draw of scratching overwhelmed all thoughts of the consequential guilt.

He was unfocused, lost in his own head, held in place magnetically by the spatter of scabs over his legs. There was blood caught under his fingernails, and his eyes were stinging, and his breath was quivering– but there still wasn’t a chance going to stop.

And that was the way his mother found him when she came home: sprawled on his bedroom floor, streaks of blood down his legs, shaking his hands like a child.

\----

Allegedly (according to Doctor Morgan), Gerard was supposed to have found solace in the fact that this progressively worsening ‘quirk’, as his mother called it, came with a diagnosis of dermatillomania.

Donna seemed to take it very calmly, but Gerard could hear the tremor in her voice as she asked about treatment options, occupational therapy, spinner rings and the likes of those things. Gerard bit his tongue at that. He didn’t need ‘treatment’. He didn’t need to hear everything he’d been told before, simply from a new mouth of a new doctor. He didn’t need a new condition to add to his list.

He wished away the word, such an ugly word – _‘dermatillomania’_ – and crumpled it away in one of the dusty, unused files at the back of his mind. He fumbled in his mother’s bag for his notebook, ignoring the drone of the doctor’s voice as she spoke about medications, then quietly noted down his own name for his new condition: scratchomania.

It had a nice ring to it, he thought, and it was much less of a mouthful than that other word, the ugly, technical, medical one he’d scrambled into pieces to save himself the chore of remembering.

“Scratchomania,” he mumbled to himself that night as he swiftly skinned away the scarlet-black mottle on his inner arm. The rush came and went like a shooting star. He felt empty a second after it was gone.

He taped a plaster over the stinging mark and sank down into his bed, flicking his lamp off with a sigh. “Scratchomania,” he repeated. Yes, he was quite satisfied with that. He closed his eyes and noted it down in his orange folder; it felt like a rather orange word.

He lay awake, tapping at his wrists for a few minutes before he was submerged in dappled coal and crimson dreams about the hideous concept of tomorrow and the scars that would come with it.

\----

Gerard loathed tomorrows. Today was today only, and that was that, so rather obviously (to him at least), there was no weight nor value whatsoever in thinking about a day that was not today. Gerard loathed lots of things, and ‘tomorrow’ was just a single grain of sand in a massive sea of hate– although there was just one thing that stood out very strikingly in that sea. Art.

Gerard abhorred art more than anything in the world.

He used to adore it. He could pour his worst fears and everything that hurt him most onto a canvas, like lancing his stomach and his lungs open and spreading his insides over the page– but then he could make it beautiful, make it explode in fireworks of colour and blissful agony, like tearing the wound further open and cauterising and stitching it at the same time. He could shut his feelings off by forcing them out in spectrums of paint and lines, losing himself in the way the brush curved and the way that summer could cry out to him in winter if he simply spilled some sunbeams over the page.

Art used to be passion, and the scorching fire of joy, but now it burned his fingertips, suffocating him in the stifling fumes of the paint and its choking colours. It didn’t heal his injuries anymore. It split him apart by the skin, in an excruciating burst of curdled bones and a confetti of scabs.

He blamed the SSRIs for that.

Granted, he blamed the SSRIs for most things, but it wasn’t like it was unjustified. They did fuck him up pretty bad. And he hadn’t exactly been stable in the first place.

And now he’d lost his safe place; his sanctuary had been inside the pastels and acrylics and canvases, but now they would cry out if he tried to touch them, now they would crawl under his skin with a static acid itch if he even contemplated painting.

He was lost, and all he could find solace in was peeling off his own skin until his body was a painting in itself, claret-stained and martyred, all for the sake of fucking art.

\----

The stars grounded Gerard. It was like a magnetic repulsion, pushing him down to earth with the weight of a thousand suns each time he looked up at the night sky.

He searched for the stars when he needed grounding. He felt like he was drifting, sometimes. His mind was floating away out of his body and he was left a shell, expected by society to function despite the fact that his brain had escaped to seek refuge with the stars long ago.

There was very little time when he actually felt like he was inside his own mind, inside his own body, standing on earth. Most of the time it was like he was scattered in pieces in different places. He felt like his brain had been split into a million fucking horcruxes, and he was completely in the dark about where they’d all been hidden.

Perhaps that was why he was so subconsciously drawn to the stars. Sometimes he would find himself outside at midday, and realise that he had been watching the sky for over an hour, searching for fragments of his soul. His mother never tried to bring him in. She was over the moon that he was finally spending some time outdoors, even if it was just to search for something that didn’t exist in a place where nothing was likely to ever be found.

Logic would easily override his hope, but he could never shake the pull of the night sky. Once he looked up, the blue black tendrils of darkness would claw a hold of him, the stars would settle in his eyes, and he never seemed able to drag himself away.

\----

It was fairly rare that Gerard found himself lost outside in a daze during school, having slipped unnoticed out of lessons, although it did happen on occasion. Unfortunately, today was one of those occasions.

He hadn’t noticed that he was outside, or even that his head was craned right up at the sky, until his neck started to cramp from being angled so steeply upwards, and he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He supposed, absently, that the vertigo had been caused by the blood leaving his head and spiralling down to his toes, magnetically repulsed by the non-existent stars, and he came to the conclusion that he was about to faint.

Sadly though, he didn’t have time to be pleased about guessing correctly, because after a stumble of his footing and a shock of static overwhelming his vision, he promptly collapsed in the middle of the playground.

\----

When he awoke, someone was touching him, and it was only about a millisecond before the agonising prickling that came with being touched was scraping at his brain and he was crying into the chest of the stranger. He scrabbled at the man’s shoulders, wordlessly pleading to be put down, but his silent cries were not answered, nor even acknowledged.

The longer the contact went on, the more he felt like he was choking, drowning; his mind was asphyxiated by the ropes of touch, from being so close to another person and so excruciatingly far from the stars. The stars were his oxygen, his fucking life force.

The stranger finally released him, and he slumped back onto a lumpy bed with a coarse tangle of sheets that quickly proceeded to swallow him whole. He thought could hear the faint buzz of voices, and feel a dip at the end of the bed where someone was sat, but nothing really felt clear enough for him to be able to confirm that it was real. He felt like his head had been shoved in a heap of sand, and all of his senses were clogged with the tiny abrasive grains. He lay, for what could have been several minutes, or possibly several hours, on the unfamiliar and unpleasantly firm bed, spinning in between the stars and the harsh and strangling fabric of reality.

He wondered if he could force himself out of his body, push his soul out so that it would fly up to the stars and leave behind his mortal form in the school sanatorium, but he’d tried a similar idea before, and it had resulted in six weeks in hospital and some pretty severe second degree burns. (He had thought that perhaps he could drive his soul out in the same way you smoke out wasps, so he set himself on fire to test his theory. It was quite promptly proven wrong.)

The low buzz of voices seeped into his semi-conscious haze; Nurse Helen, speaking in a familiar motherly tone, and a man’s New Jersey drawl that Gerard couldn’t put a name or a face to. He could only hear faint, muffled sounds, and he couldn’t distinguish any actual words, but he decided that it was probably better that way. He doubted that they would be talking about anything interesting or worth wasting his valuable mind on.

Soon, the female voice disappeared, and the man started talking in a softer voice, kinder, directed at Gerard. Gerard could just barely make out his words, but he could hear the unintentional descant in his voice clearly.

Gerard counted each time the man’s voice rose to an F note. It wasn’t even difficult anymore– it was habit. It was more than habit; it was so ingrained in his head that he didn’t even have to make an effort to hear each note in the melody of conversation. It just happened, like breathing, or the blood pumping through his veins. And if he stopped, then, just like with breathing and the beating of his heart, he would die.

That was its favourite threat, the little monster virus in his brain, the mutated compulsion mechanism. _You'll die,_ it would hiss at him, an echo (albeit an extremely persistent and perpetual one) bouncing off the inside of his skull. _You'll die, you'll die, you'll die_. Whispered in his eyes, screamed in the back of his head. _They’ll all die._

Gerard shivered, and curled up into a ball under the duvet, counting F notes and counting his breaths and squirming until his legs were evenly positioned in an idiotically arbitrary way, just to the liking of the taunting compulsion in the back of his mind. He counted, he counted, and the notes mapped out and made delicate Fibonacci dragonfly wings, and spirals of binary. The inside of his head was an intricate web of numbers, files, and strange and beautiful expressions and words that nobody else understood.

The man touched his shoulder, attempting to wake him, clearly having not read the medical notes in his folder on the school system. Gerard flinched away immediately with a strangled breath, and folded in on himself, his skin still crawling and body still trembling from the sickly residue of human contact. He forced his eyes open to find them stinging with tears, and to see the stranger staring at him with wide eyes and a look of bewildered shock.

The first thing Gerard noticed about the man was his smell. He had an air of fresh mint – not gum or softmints – fresh mint leaves, and he radiated ivory stardust. Gerard noticed nothing about his face. He couldn’t fill in the vague blank space he saw because he hadn’t built the man’s personality in his mind yet. At that moment, this man was no one. A rather baffled no one who had not read Gerard’s file. Gerard was immediately distrustful of him.

“Did you steal my stars?” Gerard asked.

The man parted his lips and his face scrunched up a little, and Gerard fidgeted, rather distressed by the fact that he couldn’t match up this expression to any of the labelled ones on his picture cards.

“You look like stardust,” Gerard mumbled, trying to justify his rather blunt demand. “Your hair is all…” Gerard trailed off and gesticulated vaguely with his hands. “Constellation-y.”

“I didn’t steal anything of yours,” the man said. “I promise.”

“Then where are my stars?” Gerard asked in a plaintive whisper.

“Uh, nurse?” The man leaned over to the door, searching for Helen. “I think the kid’s a little concussed.”

“I’m not concussed,” Gerard said indignantly. “Give me my fucking stars back.”

The stranger blinked. “It’s daytime, I think the stars just aren’t visible right now.”

Gerard let his body slump a little, let the tension fall slightly. Logical explanations were his constant, his security. “Really?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure– I teach English, not physics– but I am fairly certain.”

“Oh,” Gerard murmured. “You’re a teacher?” Gerard began to suspect him of theft slightly less. Teachers were transparent and idiotic, with grudges against humanity and the most enormous rods stuck up every one of their asses, but they weren’t generally malicious on purpose. They were just born that way.

“Yeah, I’m Mr Iero,” the man smiled lopsidedly. “I’m taking over from Mrs Stuart. Just got here today.”

“I’m in Mrs Stuart’s class,” Gerard mumbled absently.

“Well, it looks like I’ll be teaching you then. Do you like English? What’s the curriculum like?”

Gerard’s mind glitched. That was two questions too many.

Mr Iero blanched at Gerard’s blank face. “The principal at my last school was a hideously incompetent infraction on functioning society. Most of the students spent their school lives re-enacting 16 and Pregnant, and his only advice to me in regard to that was to try to get them into Jersey Shore instead.”

“State school?” Gerard asked dryly.

Mr Iero winced. “How did you guess?”

“Well, at prep schools people seem to be much more interested in Made in Chelsea.”

The teacher shook his head and laughed, and his hair fell around his eyes like the perfect curl of a breaking wave, sea foam glittering in his silver-hazel flecked irises in a reflection of the elating stars.

“What’s funny?” Gerard asked curiously.

A furrow appeared in Mr Iero’s brow. “You just made a joke?”

“No, I pointed out the obvious.”

There was an unsolicited pause, and Gerard let out a breath. The air swirled in an imperceptible mist around the two figures in the sanatorium, and settled like ash, heavy in the thick air. Gerard was near closing off– since he wasn’t planning on becoming an English teacher, talking to this man was going to be of no benefit to him, ever, and he was quite eager to cease all contact unless it was absolutely essential. He’d been making an effort to keep his replies to the man’s questions to three to six words in the hope of shutting him out (social cues and all, like in that book Doctor Morgan had thrust upon him exasperatedly when he asked her what a grimace was), but it didn’t seem to be having any effect. Jesus Christ, did English teachers like to go on.

Gerard shut his eyes and pressed his palms over them, with enough pressure to spark a burst of a glistening spectrum of fireworks behind his eyelids. His mind spiralled into the depths of the vivid and intangible sky in his eyes, and after a few blissfully safe moments, he braced himself to return to the surface, and drown in the sea of the teacher’s eyes and the sanatorium’s dazing aqua walls.

“Sleepy?”

Gerard choked on his breath a little. Mr Iero’s voice had been like the brush of a snapped thorn gracing over his shoulder; momentarily shocking, but harmless. Gerard shivered. Hopefully harmless.

“You think you’re alright to go back to class?” the teacher asked him.

“No,” Gerard said with unquestionable certainty. “But if I don’t then mom will get upset. What time is it?”

Mr Iero glanced down at his watch. “About half past one.”

“Yes, but what time is it specifically?”

The man squinted at the tiny numbers on his watch. “Twenty eight minutes past one?” he responded apprehensively.

“Yes, but–” Gerard said more insistently– “ _Specifically._ ”

“Um.” Mr Iero blinked and scrutinised the smallest hand on his watch. “Twenty eight minutes and forty nine seconds past one.”

The stiffness in Gerard’s shoulders disappeared and an easy smile found its way to his face. “Thank you.” He swiftly pulled himself up off the bed and turned to leave, but Mr Iero stopped him.

“Don’t you want your jacket?” the man asked.

Gerard shook his head. “No, you’ve got the stars tonight. They’re in your eyes. It’ll get pretty cold in there when night comes,” he said, gesturing at his head as if he was suggesting that the temperature was going to drop in Mr Iero’s mind.

The man’s blank face didn’t faze Gerard. He knew that this one had the night sky inside him, but that he would only realise it himself once he looked in his mind at night, delved into his own icy black world and really looked.

“Trust me,” Gerard said. “You’ll need it.”


	2. The Gum is Trying to Eat Me

Gerard liked dreams. He liked nightmares, to be more specific. He admired the way that they were so viciously real, and could easily contort people's minds into searing agony merely with thoughts from the victim's own head.

Sometimes Gerard wished that he was a nightmare.

He liked to twist people. To climb under their skin and ruin them from the inside out with little observations he made and secret pieces of information he gathered that no one else seemed to notice. The minor alterations in someone's voice, their stance, posture, pupil dilation and contraction. It was habit. Once a subject had caught his eye, every little detail of their personality-- from their movements to their expressions to their way of getting around others-- would automatically be filed away in his head for later use.

Some people would call it cruel, but Gerard called it intelligent. He was only utilising what everyone so blatantly put on display. And he didn't _manipulate_ his subjects; he only gave them what they deserved. An enlightening, an education on things they should have had drilled into them long ago. It was just karma, essentially. Targeted karma.

It was beautiful to watch people crumble, and beautiful to witness the instantaneous rise in status Gerard would gain from merely indirectly influencing someone's downfall. There was a strange serenity in witnessing how at a waver in his malevolence, his level on the social ladder in the eyes of his peers would plunge. Gerard didn't enjoy popularity at all; he made it his mission to scare away anyone that admired him. He just found it morbidly amusing how changeable and impressionable teenagers were. Didn't they understand? If someone is malicious towards you once, they are guaranteed to be malicious towards you again. It's the fucking rule of nature. People never learn.

This was his art now. Wrecking people, and watching as no one helped pick up the pieces. He only destroyed those who had already caused destruction themselves, of course, so if they had any common sense at all they would know that it was bound to happen sometime and they simply brought it upon themselves.

And of course, once malicious, always malicious, the rule would come into play again. Karma would snap back on his past subjects as soon as they had rebuilt their status in the school, and their towering pride would come crashing down yet again. Gerard would just laugh. People never learned.

\----

Frank woke up with ungraded test papers stuck to his face and crumpled under his hands, and a broken fountain pen leaking permanent ink onto his white button-up shirt.

He groaned and shuffled the papers into a vague pile on the desk before hauling himself up and trudging into the bathroom. The ink was stubborn, and the stain refused to diminish when he took off his shirt and scrubbed at it, and his hangover was equally as reluctant to go away even when he swallowed three more aspirins than the packet advised. He did manage to get the stink of vodka on his breath to disappear when he rinsed his mouth out with mouthwash, but he knew that within about ten minutes he would only reek of cigarettes instead.

The point in his life where Frank had been stable and happy was long gone. The point in his life where he wasn't an alcoholic or a chain smoker or potentially addicted to aspirin was so far away, it was a fucking dot.

When he thought about it, he sort of hated his life.

Frank fumbled in his pocket and clutched at his cigarette packet, then slid one out and held it between his teeth and lit it. Clotted smoke and charred tar filled his lungs, suffocating his blood and clouding his head with relief. He sighed, letting out a disgusting swirl of smoke.

A long time ago he'd loved his job. He'd loved teaching. He would take joy in bringing a smile to a kid's face or helping a class make it through their exams. But the kids started to bring him down. His _bills_ started to bring him down. He didn't have enough to pay for his food, let alone his apartment, and teens these days were turning into cynical, sarcastic and downright cruel little bastards. They were never open to learning anymore, and the principal refused to let Frank try to make things interesting for them, insisting that he stuck to the outdated textbooks. Frank wasn't one to question a man in a position of such high authority, so he resentfully settled. He just couldn't make his kids smile.

Frank sighed and took another drag from his cigarette. He perched on the edge of the bath, hearing it creak slightly under his weight, and stared at himself in the mirror. The wrinkles around his eyes were deepening, and his frown lines were becoming more prominent. Deep purple stains shadowed his eyes, and his mouth was a thin line almost devoid of colour. Fuck, he looked shitty.

He stubbed out the cigarette on the edge of the sink and stood up so he could look at himself in the mirror better. He forced a smile. Did that look alright? Yeah, he could pass as happy. His mouth was stretched into a grin but his eyes were sad and tired. But, of course, no one ever took much notice of the boring old English teacher. No one looked close enough to see that he was just a little bit wrecked inside.

Frank left the bathroom, not wanting to look at his reflection any longer. He felt kind of sick. It might have been the vodka, but fuck, who was he kidding? It was never the vodka.

\----

Gerard sat cross legged on the grainy classroom floor, underneath an empty desk at the front of the room. The rest of the world was invisible that way, and he was essentially invisible to the world. Mr Iero had glanced around for Gerard at the beginning of the lesson as he read out the register, but had dismissed the lack of response as an absence. He only discovered later, when one of the boys at the back of the classroom muttered a half-witted remark about Gerard being a hermit and threw a ball of paper at Gerard's head, that Gerard was in fact present, and just preferred to work on the floor. Well. Downright _refused_ to work unless he could sit on the floor.

These kids' personalities shone out and sparked around the classroom; this clearly wasn't a high set, but what they lacked in skill they made up for in charisma. They were pretty outspoken and extreme, which, Frank supposed, could be of some use in another situation (perhaps a drama lesson). But, unfortunately, this was an English class, and Frank wasn't particularly keen on having a wild and brazen English set. Gerard excluded. Although Gerard could be rather a difficulty too, despite his quietness most of the time. He wrote flawlessly, with impeccable grammar and eloquence, but immediately rejected any specific task Mr Iero set for him.

"Creativity isn't supposed to be limited," Gerard had muttered from under the table.

"I know," Mr Iero had said carefully, "But in order to possess unconstrained creative energy, you must learn how to use it within particular boundaries."

Gerard paused for a few moments before replying, considering the teacher's words. He tilted his head to one side, but didn't look up from his page. "Lovely sentiment, nice phrasing, bullshit meaning," Gerard said dryly.

"Language," Mr Iero reproached. "But thank you. For the first half of that sentence."

Gerard made an unenthusiastic noise of acknowledgement. He didn't like wasting his mind on teachers, although as a basic human right they really did deserve to know how dense they were being sometimes. It was simply inhumane not to tell them the truth every now and then.

\----

Gerard was what Mr Iero's old school would have called a 'Difficult Child'. God knows why it required capital letters at the start. Personally, it bothered the hell out of Frank, but it did a good job of sticking in his mind.

Belleville High seemed to have taken to merely branding Gerard as 'mentally ill'. The words were displayed in small printed capitals, coloured red and stamped right beside Gerard's name on the register, accompanied with a pop-up list of all his conditions. Frank stared sadly at the list and its notes for a while in his break, wondering why the staff would think to write such morose and useless comments on the register. It clearly wasn't to help the kid.

_Overreacts and is hysterical in response to touch. Extremely distorted and immoral views of the world. Do not let him talk to the other children._

_Conditions: Borderline personality disorder, disassociation, autism, obsessive-compulsive-disorder, paranoia, dermatillomania, dermatophagia, trichotillomania-_

Frank shut his laptop, not wanting to read any more. It evidently wasn't going to do any good. He could never imagine getting inside this kid's head, with all of those little monsters crawling around and dominating his thoughts- so much so that he was forbidden from talking to other students during lessons. He couldn't imagine how torturous it must be.

\----

Gerard liked his monsters.

They made him special. Made him able to understand and utilise things that others could never even grasp the concept of. Of course, his disorders did knock him to pieces inside, a little more every day, but he liked the ruin, in a way. It hurt- emotions would manifest as physical pains, and pretty intense ones at that- but hurting all the time and having _his_ mind and perception and feelings was far better than being constantly comfortable but having a blissfully fucking ignorant template of a brain, like the other kids at school.

Gerard wondered what it must be like to see the world from a normal person's perspective. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to only have _one_ of his conditions, rather than the unholy concoction of sicknesses he had been burdened and blessed with. Gerard knew it would be a struggle just to have compulsions on their own, or to only have dermatillomania, but compared to his ruined and raw fragments of a mind, he envisioned that it would be rather beautifully serene to only have one disorder. Maybe he was just being human in that he thought others had it better, though. 'The grass is always greener' and all that crap. He seemed to have a lot of self-awareness in that respect, but no power to change his state of mind-- knew he was always going to believe that he was suffering the most; his brain always seemed to think pessimistically like that, and unfortunately, until someone _proved_ that they were feeling shittier than him, he was never going to be able to believe that he had it better than anyone.

He welcomed the jealous thoughts of clear minds and painlessness, though, and let them pass, like all thoughts would eventually. It wasn't like he could just remove great chunks of his brain, or climb into someone else's head and live their life instead. Even then it might turn out that his 'suffering' was nothing compared to other people's, even though it felt like hell for him. At least he knew that he was smarter than some people. (And less smart than a significant percentage of the population, but he liked to focus on the positive side, and pretend that he was the cleverest in all the land.) At least he knew that he was in worse physical shape than some people-- that was nice and measurable, and easy to compare. And Gerard knew that, given the choice, he'd rather be brilliant and sick than dumb and healthy any day.

\----

Frank was not happy. Frank’s English class was not happy either.

“Can anyone pick out an example of a good metaphor in the text and explain why it’s effective?” Frank asked, a rather dull tone to his voice despite the efforts he made to animate it. Two weeks into his new job and the small bleak flicker of hope left in his life had already drained down the throats of those awful kids.

None of the students put in any effort at all– in fact, a large portion of the class seemed quite determined not to try– so Frank had started to think that, in compliance with the universal law of school, he ought to join in with having an apathetic attitude towards everything.

He knew the students must have planned it out, the way they would wear him out and make him fold, but he didn’t bother going against it at all. Honestly, he was pretty impressed. It was a fairly systematic approach, and clearly quite a bit of effort had been put in by the kids to make it work– most likely far more than it would have taken just to fill in the goddamn question paper.

But Frank didn’t question it. He didn’t fight it. That was just the way the system went.

A light wind broke the stillness in the air, and Pete perked up and tossed a crumpled paper aeroplane across the room to soar briefly on the updraft. Frank shut the window. He turned on his heel, and paced along the length of the classroom as slowly as he could manage in an attempt to drag out time, but he was tense and jittery, and ended up walking the whole distance in three seconds. Frank tried to mask the tone of exasperation in his voice when he spoke again. “Effective metaphors? Anyone?”

After a pause, Gabe put his hand up.

“Go on,” Frank said cautiously.

Gabe smiled. “Your dick is an effective metaphor,” he said smartly, like it was the funniest thing in the world.

The boys at the back of the class snorted with gruff and dopey laughter, shoving each other in the shoulders, while Gabe basked in the glow of the shittiest joke in the history of mankind.

Frank smiled tightly. “Wrong answer, Saporta.”

Pete shrugged, a snide smile on his face. “Your dick is the wrong answer.”

“Sure it is, Wentz,” Frank said dryly. “Of course, in the field of English literature and language one must value and encourage expression of opinions– but if your opinion involves slagging off a teacher then I suggest that perhaps you think twice before yelling it out to the class, or you'll land yourself and all your gang in lunchtime detention.”

Gerard's mouth quirked into a small smile at Mr Iero's attempt at colloquial language. "Gang," he echoed softly from under the table. He knew he was being a little teasing, but his reaction was fucking mild compared to the alleged 'gang' in question.

The boys at the back erupted in laughter. "Yeah, gang," Pete howled. "Better keep it down, don't wanna make Iero mad!"

Frank scowled. "You wanna come back after school and help me scrape gum off the desk?"

Pete grimaced at the prospect.

Gerard smiled slyly. From his advantageous post on the floor at the front of the room, he had watched Pete and his boys each wipe globs of gum on the underside of the table at least twice a lesson. The wood wasn't even visible now from underneath the table; it was just a hideous mound of sticky pink and white. He tried not to stare at it too long, despite the draw of the unique shape and colour variations. It looked rather like it was going to try to eat him.

From under the desk at the front of the class, Gerard shifted and leaned his body to the side, so he could look up at the underside of the boys' table. He quietly admired the disturbingly voracious texture of the gum from a safe distance, slipping the swallowing feel of it away into his mind. He would have wanted to paint it, a long time ago. But that was before.

"Fine, man," Pete said to Mr Iero, gruff surrender in his voice. "I'll stop expressing my deep emotions. I was just tryna have fun."

"This isn't really the place for that kind of fun, Wentz," Mr Iero sighed. "If you want to write an autobiography about your incredibly deep emotions and print it out in neat format and put it in my pigeonhole, however, then I'd be happy to read it in the lesson and explore your unfathomably fun world. But since I doubt it'd be very interesting for you to write fifty thousand words on hanging out at the playground with your mates and scaring little kids, then I suggest you shut your mouth."

William's mouth dropped and his face twisted slightly into an expression of tough irritation, a twitch of hurt masked just below the surface. Pete bit the inside of his mouth, and Gabe snarled. "Someone stick a rod up your ass, Iero?" he asked.

"Detention," Mr Iero said sharply, no breath of hesitation before he spoke.

The 'gang' muttered to each other in frustration, and William tipped back on his chair and shoved at the support rung of the table with his shoes. "Asshole," he drawled, and Gerard had to take a brief moment to appreciate the soft curve of his mouth as he spoke. Ordinarily, a pretty face would mean nothing to Gerard; without a valuable personality people were just blank mannequins to him, but William liked music, and Gerard liked the line of his jaw when he sang, and with all factors combined Gerard was able to appreciate that William was not an entirely useless person and was in fact quite beautiful.

But only a little. Only pretty enough to distract Gerard very briefly, before he returned to scribbling spirals of words and poem patterns of letters on the sound of Mr Iero’s voice and giant globs of bubblegum eating entire classes of teenagers.

\----

A soft and almost intimate (although still invasive and unwanted) voice nudged at Gerard’s sound barriers, and his subconscious vaguely acknowledged the request for attention before deciding that it wasn’t worth his consideration and attempting to blank out the noise. To his great dismay though, he didn’t seem able to block it out completely, and the sound of Mr Iero’s voice soon started to seep into his cognisant mind.

“How long have you been repeating my name?” Gerard mumbled, finally tearing his eyes away from his notebook he had tucked by his feet for convenience, since he sat cross-legged.

Mr Iero shook his head. “It’s fine, I’ve got your attention now.”

“Why didn’t you tap me on the shoulder or something?”

The teacher looked a little confused and taken aback, and he shifted, shrugging his shoulder slightly. “Your file said you don’t like to be touched.”

Gerard nodded his head in confirmation, and murmured, “But most teachers just ignore that if I’m not listening to them.”

“I wouldn’t. I respect boundaries, okay?”

That was true, to some extent, but Mr Iero had already broken into Gerard’s boundaries without meaning to. Broken into his writing. Slid under his skin and broken into his mind. Gerard made an unconvinced, noncommittal noise in response. His muscles felt too bound and strung. He could feel his pulse spinning, and he wanted to peel off the carpet with his fingernails just to get some release from the grating in his head.

“Gerard?”

“I heard you.” That was also true to some extent. Gerard had heard, but he hadn’t listened. He didn’t trust people; people lied. Gerard didn’t lie.

“Can I see what you’ve written?” Mr Iero asked, that starry look flourishing in his eyes. Gerard almost got dizzy from it and had to look away, drawing his eyes to the pages of his book despite the fact that he knew exactly what was written there.

Gerard made no noise of response; he slid his notebook over to where Mr Iero was kneeling beside him, and the quiet scratching of the tangled carpet fibres against the pages was enough to speak for him.

"It's good, Gerard," he murmured after a beat. "You're pretty interested in that lump of chewing gum, huh?"

When Gerard looked up, Mr Iero had a playful smile on his face, and Gerard could have likened him to a small puppy with his floppy hair and wide brown eyes. He tilted his head to the side, waiting patiently for Gerard's response. Gerard nodded tentatively.

"You wanna help the boys scrape it up at break?" Mr Iero asked teasingly.

Gerard knew that it was a rhetorical question, and that Mr Iero didn't expect a serious response, but Gerard had a serious response, so he answered nonetheless. "It would give me something to do other than staring at the sky," he shrugged. "Inspiration, I suppose."

The teacher raised his eyebrows slightly. "Oh, you– you actually want to?" He had been joking.

Gerard hummed and nodded nonetheless.

Mr Iero smiled. "Thanks. Come in any break then, I'll probably be here."

Gerard was going to come in this break. "Glad to be of help," he said. It was technically a lie; he did not want to help, but one of the results of what he wanted to do would be being of help, and he was glad to do what he wanted to do, so technically, technically, he was glad to be of help.

Gerard liked technicalities. He got by on technicalities.

Mr Iero was blatantly unaware of Gerard's love of using technicalities to help him escape the guilt of lying. Mr Iero didn't need to know that, though. Omitting was not lying– on a technicality.

\----

Lunch came and went like the tide, achingly slowly and snapping and quick simultaneously. The desk was clean of gum and Gerard's hands stank of mauled strawberry and deodorant by the time break had come to an end. Gerard was barely aware of the fact that his hand stung from the spatula digging in; he was inspired, and Mr Iero seemed to have taken a liking to him– albeit on a technicality.

Next English lesson, Mr Iero told the gang at the back that they had Gerard to thank for getting them out of scraping the mess off the table, and that instead they would just have a regular detention. They seemed oddly grateful, and a little disturbed at the fact that Gerard had actively done something to assist them, but nonetheless, Gerard decided that he'd probably earned some respect from them, and that in not being glad to help, he had helped, and gained something he was glad to have.

The concept was strange. A lot of things about Gerard were strange, though.


	3. Chemically Imbalanced

The frequency of Mr Iero's name appearing in Gerard's notebooks had been increasing drastically lately. Gerard didn't know why; Gerard didn't like him. He was just interesting. The rain in his eyes, and the stars on his crystalline eyelashes, and the curl of his chocolate hair, soft around the nape of his neck. The way he said Gerard's name, and the curve of his shy mouth when he smiled.

Interesting.

Maybe it was the fact that Mr Iero hadn't immediately branded Gerard as talentless like all his other teachers had because he didn't follow the syllabus. Mr Iero respected and appreciated his work despite its miscorrelation with the system and school's idea of what was going help him learn. Gerard supposed that that was a fairly reasonable explanation. But Gerard didn't really like to suppose. He wanted to  _understand_.

\----

 _Mr Iero held the jacket close to his chest, burrowing into its warmth, feeling the painted droplets of stardust in his head filter through the heat and melt and solidify into stars._ _He was cold._ _The jacket was Gerard's, the one he had given to him the day they had met, and the ice and stalactites in his head were Gerard's too, and so was every other part of him._

_He didn't like this surrealism. He wanted the real Gerard present, to hold him and bleed real warmth into him. He wanted to touch, and he wanted to feel, and he wanted to give all the beautiful stars he had made to Gerard, to wear in his hair, and hold safe in his hands._

\----

Gerard awoke to a blank mind, as usual. The brief despair he felt before he collected himself and consciously acknowledged that he was in his own room was normal. The fear induced by his dream the moment he recalled it was not. It had not been a nightmare; Gerard liked nightmares. They made him feel real. This had been something else.

He slipped into English by the back door that day, and did not talk to Mr Iero. He did not look up from under the table, he did not listen to the boys on the back desk joking about the substitute chemistry teacher’s tits, and he most certainly definitely did not feel like his ribs had turned to cotton at the sight of Mr Iero clutching at the hem of his cardigan, dithering, wondering if Gerard was going to stay behind. The stars fell in Gerard's throat when he left the classroom.

\----

Gerard felt like glass. There was a thread tied around his tongue, slipping and catching like a little icicle. A vague numbness crawled in his chest and in the pit of his stomach in cold tendrils. He wasn't sure how he felt. He wasn't sure how the stars felt. He felt… disconnected and disassociated, and sort of sick. He wondered, briefly, how his stomach would feel if it knew that he was describing it as sick. How it would feel emotionally. He wondered if it would be hurt, figuratively. He wondered if stomachs could even feel at all. Maybe he was channelling his stomach, and it really was in pain. Maybe it was just the way his nerves and neurons interpreted the chemical balances inside him. ( _Chemical imbalances,_ his brain corrected.)

Biology was heart dissection today. Gerard didn’t think they were still allowed to do that. It was barbaric. Mrs Evans kept hollowly insisting that the lambs had been killed for the purpose of food produce, and that the heart was just a waste product, really. Gerard tried to point out that the animals had still been killed for human purposes, and that passing off what he considered slaughter as normal would not sway him in any way, but Mrs Evans didn’t really seem to understand the fact that sometimes different people have different opinions.

Left petulant and offended at Mrs Evans’ dismissal of vegetarianism as a reasonable and intelligent life choice, Gerard spent the majority of the lesson at the back of the classroom, tuned out from everything in the room save for the occasional soft leaps of the F notes. Except he could never tune out, not fully. He just pretended he could like other people to try and persuade his brain that he genuinely had the ability to. Sorta like a placebo. He could never stop his mind reeling though; he was always absently panicking about whether others were looking at him, whether they were thinking about him and judging him. It was a fear of something that would not scare him. He wasn’t going to let himself get preoccupied with things he couldn’t change, yet here he was, as usual, contradicting himself, and unconsciously letting his muscles thread together in tense suspension, calm eluding him for sake of the fear.

He poked at one of the specialised cell models tacked up on the wall— made by the younger years, he presumed, by give of the splayed felt tips and sellotape-– and a pen lid fell off from where it had been balanced on top of a mitochondria. He glanced up at where it had fallen from in brief bewilderment. A spider was sat exactly where the pen lid had been. Gerard was guessing that some bored child had thought it would be funny to put a pen lid right on top of a spider with the intention of frightening anyone who tried to pick it up. He said hello to the small creature, and watched as its spindly legs flexed a little at the disturbance in the air and the sudden lack of a pen-lid umbrella.

Gerard decided that the spider’s name was Larry. It felt like a Larry. Gerard checked on Larry at regular intervals during the lesson, quietly and subtly, in the hope that no one would ask him what he was doing poking at a ciliated epithelial cell. He did not have very much skill at sneaking though, he found, when Myra Willis marched up to him and demanded to know what he was up to. Actually, perhaps he was brilliant at sneaking, but the pupils of this school were just intrusive little fuckwits. Gerard decided that the latter was probably most likely. Again, Myra commanded that he tell her what he was doing, and he turned to her with a bored expression. “I’m looking at a spider.”

Myra immediately screeched, and her face contorted into a look of absolute horror and disgust, and her blonde, meticulously straightened hair almost stood on end. Gerard tried to not to scoff a laugh at how frightened she looked at the mere prospect of a spider existing. “What’s the worst you think it’s gonna do?” he asked. “Walk near you? God fucking forbid.”

“Miss!” Myra yelled, shoving her hand straight in the air with a violence that suggested that the air had told her she was fat. (Myra did not appreciate being called anything but skeletal. Gerard had once tried to tell her that weight does not determine your worth as a person, nor does skinny necessarily mean healthy, but she had exploded with rage at such a hideously preposterous concept as someone over eight stone being  _healthy_. Gerard did not like to ‘skinny shame’, as someone on tumblr had rightly put it, but if a person was under the impression that starving themself would be a healthy thing to do, he felt it rather necessary that he step in.)

“Miss!” Myra squawked again. “There’s a spider, get one of the boys to kill it, please!”

Mrs Evans sighed. “Gerard, dispose of the spider, please.” Gerard felt a little like the chambers of his heart were full of bleach. He was not going to kill Larry.

“Hurry up,” Myra whined. "It's _moving!"_ She dithered and turned around to her boyfriend. “Jordan, come kill it.”

A smug smile appeared on Jordan’s face, and he rolled his sleeves up to his forearms and cracked his neck, as if squishing a defenceless creature the size of a pea was some heroic task. He swaggered over to Gerard, and squared his shoulders, like it was some customary display of masculinity that signalled that Gerard should leave now– the boss was in town. Gerard did not leave. The boss was not in town.

Jordan leaned forward to press his thumb onto the poor little creature’s body to crush it, and Gerard hastily ducked under his arm and scooped the spider up, darting over to the lab sink. “I know, let’s flush it down the sink!" He turned back to face Myra directly. “That way we won’t have to deal with a body," he added, rather darkly, an unpleasant image of tiny body bags in his head.

Myra squirmed at the thought and nodded frantically, and Gerard let Larry wander into the metal bowl of the sink, sending him happy thoughts and safety for his journey. He turned the tap on, and Larry swirled down the drain.

Myra squealed victoriously, and Jordan grunted at Gerard– yet another primal signal in his manly masculine language– but Gerard ignored him. Safe at last from the terrible beast, Myra tottered back to her desk, a smile on her face from knowing the abysmal thing was dead. Gerard smiled too. Sometimes he was glad of the fact that his classmates were all so dull in the head. Spiders can swim.

\----

Frank clutched his coffee tightly in his hands, lamenting not paying his utility bills, and wondering if he would ever feel warmth again. It was probably about minus sixty seven degrees, and he was on the brink of turning to a solid human-shaped block of ice. He was trying to mark his lower classes’ papers, but his tired eyes kept wandering back to his bed, and all he could focus on was how easy it would be just to abandon the half-assed essays and go to sleep. Forever.

Frank sighed, leaning forwards to rest his head on the table, face down. Then again, he thought, maybe just a few hours of sleep would suffice, rather than forever. Forever was a bit extreme, and his mom would probably miss him. He pushed a few papers around on his desk to give a vague semblance of neatness and stumbled through the dimly lit room to his bed. At this point, he was rather unwilling to get changed, and it wasn’t like the suit he was wearing was an expensive one, so he slumped down onto the mattress in his clothes, and curled up.

The sharp corner of a piece of photocopy paper caught his hand, and that was when he remembered the neatly folded sheet in his pocket and how he had promised Gerard he would read it. Frank sighed and huddled up smaller under his blankets to keep most of his body warm while his hands slowly turned to ice out in the open air. Gerard had insisted that if Mr Iero had wanted to read his work he would have to photocopy it– Gerard was very unhappy with the mere _idea_ of another human touching his notebook, so he was under no circumstances going to allow Mr Iero to take it out of school to his home.

The content was far from what Frank had been expecting. It was disturbing and surreal, but fucking good; despite the fact that half of it was just nonsense to Frank and he struggled to interpret the meaning, it made him feel something– he wasn’t sure what, but at least it was something. Not many kids seemed to have the ability to do that these days: stir emotion in people, incite feelings other than frustration. Frank hated generalising, hated stereotyping, but enlightened and passionate kids were rarer in Generation X than clean cut guys in Frank’s life who were willing to go further with him than a fuck in a club bathroom. And, to be brutally honest and vaguely self depreciating, that was pretty fucking rare.

Frank had thought Gerard’s work had been about him briefly– he was always circling back to the stars and the sky and the way he found little neurological threads to link everything together, and Frank had recalled Gerard saying he looked like the stars when they first met, and wondered if this was what he had meant. Not that he literally looked like the stars, but that all his senses and memories and feelings had linked together in a mesh canvas that painted the stars under his eyes. Or maybe Gerard really did see him as the stars, and not just figuratively. He could never imagine getting in the kid’s head; he would never know.

Gerard was a special kid, Frank had seen enough to know that– but not in the way that everybody else thought. Gerard lived metaphors. Gerard _was_ a fucking metaphor. The kid was incredible, and Frank couldn’t wrap his head around the way he expressed such horrendous and sickening things through such beautiful prose. Gerard lived words. Gerard was words, and it was fucking gorgeous. Frank wanted to cling to him. Frank wanted to scrap the curriculum and just fucking teach what Gerard had been doing. It would do more than get the kids through exams, it would teach them to fucking live, and to appreciate it. Nobody appreciated anything anymore. (Nobody had appreciated anything in the first place.)


	4. Giant Metal Phalluses

Gerard hated the inter-house singing competition his school held annually. Belleville High was the only state school in Jersey that was sorted into houses, like it was fucking Hogwarts. As if the kids at his school actually had some personality. Christ.

The whole thing was an abysmal ordeal, pretending that the kids had some sort of talent. It was rather painful to endure, to be honest. It was all just bullshit to justify forced teamwork– ‘We’re bringing out all your talents!’

Gerard loved music, he did. He loved to sing; he loved to push his voice to breaking point; he loved to turn the bass up on his iPod until the guitar would go heady and deep, and soften the sharp corners of his mind, and his shattered neurones became fragments of glitter fluttering through his lungs. Gerard liked control. He did not like having two clueless seniors who studied Geography tentatively poking their fingers at random children and announcing that the harmonies were clashing, when there clearly were no harmonies at all. They would then proceed to warble an arbitrary string of notes and declare that that was the way it should be done.

Gerard tried to speak over the cornered and static chattering and insistences, but his voice was soft, only loud when he was alone, and only clear when there was nothing to slice through. His harmonies blossomed like dewy webs in the morning; inevitable, but breakable by any self-proclaimed authority.

Nobody would listen to Gerard. The ‘conductor’ got annoyed with him, the house got pissed at the conductor, Mr Williamson got pissed at the house. It happened every year. Every year it would be the same. Everyone would turn feral with a violent determination to win, despite an extreme reluctance to put in any more effort than the absolute bare minimum. It never went any differently.

Except this year, Grenville House had Mr Iero. That shouldn’t have made a difference– but Mr Iero wasn’t like everyone else. Most teachers were useless and essentially harmless– they were fucking cunts, but they couldn’t help it, they’d been conditioned to be that way– yet Mr Iero wasn’t a cunt, and he actually cared. He actually gave a shit about his job, even though the kids were assholes. Even though Gerard was an asshole. And Gerard could see how he adored his subject, how he wanted to share it, and show other people what he saw and what he felt.

Gerard was honestly a little in awe. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that Mr Iero cared. He recalled filing a rather distinct memory dangerously close to his emotions folder: Mr Iero catching sight of him crying under the table one lesson and genuinely asking him if he was alright. Of course, Gerard had replied that he was most decidedly fine through his weak sobs, as per the social norm and therefore school law. But he couldn't forget the way Mr Iero had looked closer, knelt down beside him, and told him that Gerard didn't have to lie. That Gerard could trust him.

Gerard didn't lie again; he didn't speak again that lesson. And he trusted Mr Iero, whether the man knew it or not– Gerard decided that Mr Iero didn't really need to know, though. Not until the time came. Anyway, it would have been tedious to extend the conversation any further when Gerard hadn't actually known why he was crying. There had just been this bleak sense of suffocation in his head, in his life, and he'd sort of lost his grasp on everything. His teardrops were stardust, and Mr Iero was his star, and the hot streaks of hurt and affection in his English teacher's eyes were the most beautiful thing he had seen since that bird corpse he’d found on the sidewalk on the way to school last year. (It had been very beautiful.)

Mr Iero didn't need to know what Gerard thought about his eyes though. Gerard told himself that Mr Iero wouldn’t need to know until the time came, and he ignored his subconscious telling him the time was never going to come and he was essentially being immoral through omission.

It was okay though, to neglect to tell people things. It was okay. On a technicality.

\----

Gerard drifted in and out of the morning notifications, skimming through conscious thought and sinking like a stone into a sticky web of frustration and numbness. Gerard wondered: how can one feel empty and numb while feeling everything at once? He let his burning forehead melt into the solidity of the table, and let the streaked blue feeling that was overwhelming his body seep into the cracks in his circulation system.

Chemistry was useless. Maybe the teaching method of thundering around and booming out inane jokes helped some people learn, but Gerard wasn’t _some people_. He was starting to think that his chemistry lessons were actually making him _un-learn_ everything he already knew. Every part of him, his mind and his body, felt stiff and dislocated. He wanted to climb onto the ledge of the giant, ugly, 70s style windows of the lab, and spread his arms, and spread his legs, and jump, and let death fuck him. He stared out the window. One of the maintenance men was snapping the cord on some abysmal device that Gerald supposed was meant to be a gardening tool.

He managed to tune out of the lesson without acknowledging or even noticing that he'd done it. He only let himself leave when he wasn't trying. He fucking hated that, but his brain couldn't help it, so he let it absorb its own compassion as he stared blankly and intently out the window. The gardening tool had started up, and the maintenance man had begun his maintenance.

Gerard couldn't help but think that the long handled hedge trimmer looked rather like a skinny metal cock. He wondered that if, hypothetically, there were an infinite number of parallel situations and universes, somewhere out there, a world existed where people trimmed the hedges with their penises.

Gerard did not like his current mind. He wasn't really enjoying the teenager's mindset, preliminarily being drawn to phalluses, but he had to admit, the mass realisation that had come from his several teen existential crises gave him a significantly better mind than when he was a child, and not at all in the respect of academic learning.

Mentally, he'd been great. For several months. And that was a fucking record. Physically, he was not so great. More along the lines of _actually dying_. The light was like white acid trickling into his eyes, and when he asked to turn down the lights, the other kids laughed and called him a vampire. Ordinarily, he would've taken it as a compliment, but when the only purpose of the accusation was to belittle his problems and essentially make him look like a fussy child, he took it to heart, and probably a lot more than they'd intended him to.

Mr Iero looked up from Gerard's notebook, pausing from reading Gerard's vague account of his day. "But vampires are awesome."

Gerard scowled. "But they didn't mean it as a compliment."

"It sounds like something you would normally class as a compliment anyway."

"I'm sick of that mindset,” Gerard said listlessly.

"What mindset?" Mr Iero asked. "Every second our state of mind changes."

Gerard was silent.

"C'mon, humour me here. I'm taking a page out of your book, being all philosophical."

"I'm not philosophical, I'm autistic."

Mr Iero smiled and shook his head. "Being all abstract," he corrected himself.

"I'm not abstract," Gerard said. "I'm alive."

Mr Iero paused. "Alive," he said. "That's your mindset. There are no specifics; everything is at it is, and creation is creation, and destruction is creation."

Gerard nodded slowly. "Yes," he said hesitantly. "Yes, you seem to have it there."

"Clearly, by definition then, it's got to be a compliment. What else could you take it as when vampires are so awesome?"

"I suppose," Gerard said. "Only the old fashioned ones, though. Wooden stakes and suits and slightly offensive Russian accents. No sparkling, shirtless paedophiles."

"Of course," Mr Iero said with a sigh. "Twilight essentially ruined vampires for the world."

Gerard tilted his head to the side. "Are you sure that's the mindset you want to be in, sir? A little black and white."

The teacher shook his head with a little laugh. "No, I suppose not. I'm just old fashioned too, then. In a very modern way."

"I like that," Gerard said. "I like oxymorons."

"Me too," Mr Iero said, a roguish smile on his face. "Although I do sort of hate them at the same time."

Gerard tried not to laugh, and failed.

\----

The School Song Competition was nearing its massive anticlimax: the final. Three weeks had dragged on by. Three weeks of rehearsals every break, three weeks of Gerard hiding in the toilets every break peeling off his skin against his conscious will. He was far more than desperate for it all to be over. He was almost ready to die.

And to his great dismay, the day the song competition was over, his disastrously planned art trip began. Every day, Gerard lamented choosing art as an option, and lamented the fact that students were forced to create their own timetables. Every day, Gerard prayed for God to save him from the impending doom of the art course. Seven days in muddy, rainy, sticky, freezing England. Seven days in sensory hell. For the other kids, it would be a fucking breeze. Sure, there would be a lot of complaining, and sore feet, but Gerard was most likely going to be in more pain than he had ever been in before in his entire life. And that was a lot, being horrendously oversensitive to every type of uncomfortable physical feeling that existed on this earth. People thought he exaggerated. People were fucking wrong.

Mr Iero wasn't wrong though. He seemed to have almost managed to grapple a hold on the jagged and shattered diamond of Gerard's mind. He was aware of Gerard's spectacular narcissism, and he didn't appear to be fazed by it. Nobody had understood Gerard before, but then again, nobody had read his writing before. Mr Iero could climb under his skin and fill all the cracks in Gerard's mind and Gerard _liked_ it.

Mr Iero gave it his all in the song competition. Gerard gave it his nothing– just the minimal superficial level of effort it took not to be scolded. Gerard stared dully at the crowd, clutching at the hem of his lime green cardigan as he sang. Mr Iero's voice held softly onto the edges of Gerard's mind, leaving a quiet residue behind. His voice was low and a little off key, and he was shy, tugging his sleeves over his hands, but he was strong. It was a sort of contrast, really, Gerard thought absently as he glanced at the teacher stood a few spaces away from him. Mr Iero didn't _seem_ strong, with his plaid jumpers, dorky sweater-vests, and shy, awkward drawl, but he had this quiet sense of status and stance that overwhelmed the space around him. And Gerard fucking _liked_ it.

Ordinarily, he hated when teachers had any kind of confidence (although he also hated it when they were terrified and lacking in self esteem. Teachers were generally just irritating, no matter what they did). He wasn't sure why Mr Iero was an exception. He just _was_. There was no question about it, he was different. Gerard still had yet to solve why, but he was fairly satisfied with the fact that he knew, and no one else did. He was different too, and he took pride in it. Perhaps too much– but he was almost certain he deserved as much respect from others as he held for himself, and he was certain he would get it someday. Just not yet. Anyone who’d ever achieved anything worthwhile in their life had had a shitty time at school, with no friends, and terrible grades.

Although– Mr Iero had predicted his grade to be an A*; Gerard had seen it on the desk when he left last lesson late after showing Mr Iero his latest nonsense-in-disguise-as-prose. Maybe Gerard would turn out to be an exception as well, and ace his exams, and ace his job interviews. He was sure he could put on a friendly pretence with ease, and any potential manager would hire him for his warm smile and good manners and extensive variety of talents and skills. And for his modesty. His modesty was one of his greatest assets.

(He was doomed. He just wouldn’t let himself admit it.)


	5. Reggie And The Partial Effect

Grenville House had lost the song competition, and although a part of Gerard was a little bit furious at the judges, he reminded himself that they were only teachers, after all, which made him feel slightly better about the results. Of course if the competition been judged by the Misfits instead then Grenville house would have won in a heartbeat. More than that, they'd have got a standing ovation and a free Misfits concert, just for them. (Maybe that was being a bit excessive, but Gerard felt a bit excessive today. His levels of excessiveness came and went, and today they were disturbingly high, and without discernible cause, as usual. He was becoming accustomed to it, though– and so was Mr Iero, it seemed, to his dismay.)

Instead of attending a free Misfits concert with a VIP pass, however, Gerard was leaving Belleville for Cornwall, to die. The class had already begun the ‘art’ element of the art trip before they had even been on the bus for ten minutes, as the entire group had been instructed to draw what they could see out the window.

Naturally, Gerard ignored the teacher, and started eating the sandwich his mom had packed for him. The sandwich was slightly deformed from being squashed under all of his art supplies (maybe this was the reason his mother had told him to pack the sandwich last instead of first), and it tasted weird, probably due to the fact that the ham had sort of melded into the compressed bread, but Gerard carried on eating it anyway. He knew he would be able to catch up with the art easily, he was far more advanced than the other kids on the trip.

Again though, his ‘modesty’ got the better of him, and just as he decided that it was time he started drawing, the bus pulled out onto the freeway at breakneck speed, and his sketchbook fell from where he’d balanced it on his knees and skidded down the bus floor. Perhaps this had been why the teachers had wanted them to sketch while they were on minor roads. Perhaps his teachers did have some sense after all.

Gerard tugged on his seatbelt until it extended as far as possible, then tucked it under his arm so he could lean under the seat in front of him without getting strangled. Somehow, he managed to strangle his armpit, which was unexpectedly painful, but he supposed that it was better than breaking his neck. He could feel his brain getting compressed and crushed, just like his sandwich, except by the blood rushing to his head rather than books and pencils. Gerard could just see his sketchbook, a few rows ahead of him on the floor. Some kid gave it a kick, and he hissed in irritation, filing away the image of the kid’s shoes so he could find out who to be angry with later. Then, blessedly, the bus lurched and accelerated at alarming velocity, and Gerard’s sketchbook was launched back towards him, sliding across the gritty sheet floor and coming to rest at the feet of the kid sitting in front of him.

The kid bent forward to pick up the sketchbook, then twisted around in his seat and stuck his face through the gap between the two seats in front of Gerard. It was the perfect picture of the scene in The Shining when Jack smashed a hole in the door and pressed his face into it. Right before attempting to kill everyone. Gerard twitched in faint apprehension, but took out an earphone nonetheless. “Hello,” he said uneasily.

“Hey,” the kid grinned. He slid Gerard’s sketchbook halfway through the gap between the seats, and nodded down at it. “This yours?”

“Yes.” Gerard took the sketchbook, then plugged his headphones back in.

The kid turned around again, looking slightly put out. Gerard felt a little guilty, but only five minutes later the guy was grinning and pushing his face through the gap again.

Gerard reluctantly pulled both earphones out. “What?” he asked.

“What’s your name? I’m James, but only my mom calls me that. Everyone else calls me Dewees.”

“I’m Gerard,” Gerard said dully. “My mom calls me Gerard. Everyone calls me Gerard.”

Dewees nodded, smile ever-present and bright. He still looked a little bit like the dude from The Shining and it was faintly disturbing, but he seemed harmless enough, and significantly less bloodthirsty than Jack, which Gerard counted as a major plus. “So, Gerard, you like art?”

“What sort of a question is that?” Gerard asked indignantly. He wanted to say that he hated art, but then he would look like even more of a freak than people already perceived him to be. What sort of an idiot would take an advanced art class if they didn’t fucking like art? Gerard was very reluctant to admit aloud that he was that sort of an idiot.

“Well,” Dewees shrugged (Gerard could see the movement of his shoulders through the tiny gap between the seats in the space his head wasn’t taking up), “You did chuck your sketchbook all the way across the bus floor.”

“It fell,” Gerard said huffily. If there was one thing Gerard had respect for in the art classroom, it was sketchbooks. Every kind of book deserved respect. Books were fucking _sacred,_ and not to be abused.

“It fell,” Dewees agreed, “Then I picked it up and gave it to you, and you shoved it in your bag with the cover bent in half, and now it’s got sandwich crumbs all over it.”

Gerard froze, then scrambled to unfold the front page of his sketchbook and smooth it out, before placing it carefully back in his bag. He hastily zipped his bag up again, swearing under his breath at the stupid kid’s stupid observational skills.

“What’s your middle name?” Dewees asked cheerily as Gerard kicked his bag onto the bus floor.

“Why do you care?” Gerard asked, staring at the straps of his bag as he tangled them between his feet.

“Mine’s Reggie,” Dewees said brightly, grinning.

Gerard wondered if anyone would notice if he strangled Dewees with the fastenings of his backpack. The kid was really starting to get on his fucking nerves.

“My mom was actually gonna call me Paco,” Dewees continued, “and have James as my middle name, but the guy who drove mom to the hospital was called Reggie, and he wasn’t like, an ambulance driver or anything, he was just some taxi driver, but he got us there in record time, so like, mom thought it was a good enough feat to name me after him, but she didn’t want my Christian name to be Reggie cos it’s kind of a stupid name, so she made my first name James and my middle name Reggie, and anyway, it was really impressive that he drove us all the way through town so fast, cos I was born in Manhattan, and the traffic there is absolutely _hell_.”

Gerard stared at Dewees for a few moments, unable to form words. Then he put his earphones in. He tugged his stringy hair over his eyes to form a stringy blackout curtain. To Gerard’s dismay, however, he could still hear the kid talking, and when he went to turn the volume up on his iPod, he found that it was already as high as it could possibly go, and oh _god,_ he was just about ready to _die._ He took out an earphone again to tell Dewees to _please shut up,_ but was interrupted by another happy train wreck of a question– “Who are you friends with?”

“No one,” Gerard snapped. He had briefly considered saying Mr Iero, but had decided mid-thought that it was probably the stupidest idea ever, especially as most kids didn’t actually like Mr Iero at all. Gerard couldn’t understand why in the slightest. Mr Iero was fucking great.

“Who d’you hang out with at lunch then?” Dewees asked persistently.

“ _No one,_ ” Gerard reiterated.

“I’ve seen you with that kid with the weird hair though, the one who looks like she’s been rained on.”

Gerard scrunched up his face. “What kid with weird hair?” He didn’t know any kids with weird rained-on hair, did he?

“Whatsername. You know, the one who’s always wearing those freaky ass frilly skirts.”

“Oh,” Gerard said. “Mikey.” (He’d told her to stop wearing grandma’s old petticoats. He’d known something like this would happen.) “That’s my sister. And her hair isn’t _weird,_ she just _straightens_ it.” Gerard was quiet for a moment, contemplating putting his earphones back in for the fifth time. “Her skirts are kinda freaky though,” he admitted.

“Freaky in a sort of cool way though, y’know?”

Gerard frowned. No one had ever used the word ‘cool’ to describe him or Mikey in the entire history of the universe. His perception of Dewees shifted slightly towards the more positive side of his brain. “Yeah,” Gerard said absently, unsure of what to say in response.

“I love that fifties shit,” Dewees mused. Gerard marvelled briefly at the moment of silence as Dewees floated into a nineteen-fifties-themed daydream. Unfortunately though, a second later, he started talking again. “I always thought Audrey Hepburn was super cool. You know Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

Gerard stopped short in his tracks, his carefully planned out one word response discarded, and his plot to deter Dewees from talking to him completely forgotten. “I fucking _loved_ Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Gerard said emphatically. He paused. “Although, that was actually 1961.”

Dewees waved his hand dismissively (Gerard could see it behind the gap between the chairs). “I was only a couple years off, cut me some slack. Anyway, Roman Holiday’s my favourite film of hers, and that’s from the fifties, so I always associate her with the fifties,” Dewees said.

“Roman Holiday… That was, what, ’53?”

“’53, indeed,” Dewees confirmed. “Shit, I’ve found my soul mate.”

Gerard raised an eyebrow. “I hope you don’t mean me.”

“Of course I do, buddy!” Dewees grinned.

Gerard wondered if the kid was drunk. Drunk people were supposed to be overly affectionate, weren’t they?

And anyway. Gerard had rather hoped that Mr Iero could be his soulmate, despite the seriously weird implications that would involve.

“Right,” Gerard said uncomfortably. Although– Dewees was the only person under the age of eighty Gerard had known to like Audrey Hepburn. Maybe he should be making more of an effort with the guy.

“D’you know your tie isn’t on properly?” Dewees reached through the gap between the chairs to poke at Gerard’s mangled tie.

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you care? Cos you should. School pride and all that.”

“I don’t like school. Do _you?”_ Gerard asked reproachfully.

“Fuck,” Dewees grinned. “Man, I was just tryna blend in with that school pride crap. I thought I was the only one. _Jesus,_ I hate our school.”

“Ah,” Gerard said contentedly. “We are kindred spirits, after all.”

“You wanna come sit by me?”

Gerard shrugged. “Sure.” He had never been given an offer like this. It was generally in reverse: whoever he was sitting by would ask him to leave. Or demand it of him. He paused for a few moments, then quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and scrambled into the seat in front of him, his heart racing. Fuck, that was probably the most dangerous thing he had ever done.

“So, dude,” Dewees said. “What sorta music d’you like?”

“Oh,” Gerard responded.

“What?”

“Oh,” Gerard repeated. “This is gonna take a while.”

\----

Dewees was becoming a fairly good friend of Gerard’s. This was quite a spectacular achievement, considering the fact that Gerard had never before had so much as a really mediocre friend.

Gerard was noticing a lot of things on this trip. He was beginning to take note of the fact that the most prominent thoughts in his head through the four days he had been in England unfailingly featured Mr Iero, and he was beginning to miss the man more than his mother. (Not more than Mikey though. Mikey was too cool to be beaten.) Not only this, but he was in a constant state of comparing Dewees to Mr Iero, which was not only strange, considering the fact that the former was a sixteen year old kid and the latter was an adult by about a decade, but was also a useless source of worry for Gerard.

In every aspect, Mr Iero was better than Dewees. But Gerard didn’t want to be friends with Mr Iero. The mere word ‘friend’ felt insubstantial. The thing was, Gerard wasn’t sure what he wanted with Mr Iero at all. He wanted the two of them to be closer, of course, so he could see the stars, so he could feel the stars, so he could breathe the stardust in like a fucking drug, but he didn’t want anything with a name, it just felt wrong, like it didn’t fit with the relationship they had already, let alone the imaginary one they had in Gerard’s head.

Anyway, of course Mr Iero wouldn’t want to make anything more than a casual acquaintance of Gerard. He was just a kid. A weird chubby goth kid who paid too much attention to his English teacher.

\----

Gerard was starting to wonder if this trip was really an art trip at all. Dewees was starting to wonder with him.

The class had done so much hiking through so many repetitive countryside scenes that Gerard was beginning to think that it might be a sports trip in disguise, with the purpose of luring innocent, unfit artsy kids into a torturous week of high intensity exercise—while also getting a tiny portion of their art coursework done on the side, of course.

Gerard fucking hated walking. In fact, he hated walking to such a great extent that he was starting to think that this week might be the worst week of his life. Damn art teachers with their ulterior motives and evil connections to the gym coaches.

Gerard kind of wished Mikey was there with him. She made everything better. Not exactly good, but better. But hell, she and Gerard were polar opposites sometimes. Mikey loved walks. She said they helped her connect with nature, and rediscover the beautiful things in the world. Gerard would have loved to be able to rediscover things simply through walking—how Mikey managed it he couldn’t possibly understand—but he only found things at times when he wasn't looking for them, so all a walk would lead to would be observations, which would only lead to questions, and Gerard had enough on his mind already without tedious new niggling thoughts. He couldn't afford to waste space on the silly wonderings that came to mind when he was walking aimlessly.

A while ago—Gerard hadn't a clue exactly how long ago, and he hated that about his memories; it seemed the only characteristic of autism he didn't possess was the skill and fascination with dates and numbers—Mikey had dragged Gerard with her on a walk, and Gerard's only memory of the experience was of his ears hurting, and of seeing a large circular sign that read 'green lane' and wondering absently if it was because the road had been painted green. He wondered if it would be a grassy pathway rather than a sheet of tarmac. He wondered if the lane had been named for the trees lining either side of it. But it didn't look like any other road name sign he'd seen in his life; it was circular and up on a single tall post and in a rather ambiguous place.

They were a child's wonderings, Gerard knew, and it bothered him, but in many ways he appreciated his childlike thoughts more than anything else, more than others would. Naïve and unknowing thoughts led to inspiration, and Gerard was always looking for sparks to coax his mind into opening. But there was a difference between questions and inspiration. Often it was a thin line, and often he crossed it without meaning to, but his mind insisted rather rigidly that the questions that came to mind on walks would always be questions, and nothing else. He hated his brain a lot at times.

He hated everything in existence at some point, though. It was just the way things were.


	6. Really Mediocre at Loneliness

Gerard hated to admit it—god, he fucking hated to admit it—but he was actually learning on this trip. Learning, and making friends and everything, like the perfect Normal Child his father despised him for not being and his mother desperately encouraged him to pretend to be. He wondered if when he got home to Jersey he would want to go out to bars, or slag people off on facebook, or be rude to girls like the other boys he knew (with the exception of Dewees), and be a normal kid. He sure fucking hoped not. The first thing he wanted to do when he got home was play Zelda with Mikey then lock himself in the basement for a week so he could get some proper art done—his art now was writing, and although it didn’t prompt him to be as rude to people who interrupted him as painting, it still required a certain level of isolation in order to get the job done well.

Gerard quietly hoped that Mr Iero would be proud of the English work he had done while on the trip. The art teachers had said that there would be no need to do other schoolwork for the week they were in England, but Gerard had wanted to. For once he was following an assignment, and he was proud of himself.

It wasn’t anything particularly interesting or significant, and Gerard was already pretty close to completely forgetting what he was supposed to do, but he was trying, and that was important. Trying to fit in with the school’s expectations of their pupils, and trying to show Mr Iero that he could be normal. He could do normal things, most definitely.

\----

Gerard’s class would not shut up. They wouldn’t shut up talking about wifi, of all things—the connection at the hotel was ‘literally terrible’, apparently. Gerard didn’t care for wifi. It just equalled a connection to other people, and that was the last thing in the world he wanted. His phone automatically connected to the hotel’s free wifi, to his dismay, and he started in surprise when a notification popped up on the screen. He stared at his phone. He’d made sure that all of his notifications were turned off in case his mom or dad tried to call him. What. What the fuck.

“I took the liberty of turning your notifications back on!” Dewees said brightly, appearing beside Gerard. Oh. “You know, in case Mikey wanted to contact you.”

Gerard clicked the email popup. It wasn’t from Mikey. The sender’s name appeared as F Iero.

Dewees craned his neck to look at Gerard’s phone. “Mr Iero?” he read aloud. “You behind on English? I’m real good at English, I could help you if you want. I got a B.”

“I don’t think I’m behind,” Gerard said absently, tapping ‘open’ and pretending to stretch so he could subtly tilt his phone away from Dewees. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Dewees to see that he was sort of friends with his teacher, there was nothing really wrong with that, per se, it was just that Dewees was the first actual non-relative non-teacher friend he’d had in about a decade, and he didn’t want the guy to think he was weirder than he actually was. Knowing Dewees (two days was enough time to get to know someone substantially, wasn’t it?) he’d probably think that Gerard was sleeping with Mr Iero. That wasn’t really the message he wanted to give out.

Fuck, but what if Dewees thought that he was hiding the message because he was sleeping with Mr Iero? No, no. He’d hidden his phone screen far too subtly for that. Dewees wouldn’t ever know that he was trying to hide something.

Dewees prodded Gerard in the shoulder. “What’re you hiding, man?”

“Nothing,” Gerard said. He shifted in his seat and casually tilted the screen so Dewees could just about see. He tapped ‘open’ again, because his phone was a stupid fuck and didn’t register any sort of contact other than a very hard stab with a finger, and skimmed over the email. Dewees leaned over and read it too before he could cover the screen again. “Oh, fuck,” he mumbled. Now he might as well have been sleeping with Mr Iero.

_‘I miss you.’_

“Well,” Dewees said slowly, staring at the message on Gerard’s phone. “That’s not creepy at all.”

“Shut up,” Gerard mumbled sullenly. “We’re not fucking or anything.”

“Christ, Gerard.” Dewees choked on a laugh. “That’s not what I was thinking at all. Well, it wasn’t what I was thinking up until you said it and put the idea in my head.”

Gerard squirmed and punched Dewees in the shoulder. “We’re just sort of friends.”

“Like–” Dewees paused. “Email pen pals or something?”

“No,” Gerard scoffed. “We’ve never even emailed before now. I totally forgot about the school email system. I guess he was just bored.”

“Or horny.”

“Shut the fuck up, you ass.”

“You shut up.” Dewees smiled sweetly, because he was a total ass and hated Gerard. “I’m lovely.” He scratched the back of his neck. “So, do you have a crush on him or something?”

“No,” Gerard said. He’d never had a crush on anyone. It was probably going to stay that way. People were stupid. Maybe except Mr Iero, but it just wouldn’t be logical to have a crush on him. He was a teacher. “He’s just cool. He likes Black Flag, you know.”

Dewees raised his eyebrows. “Really? Maybe I should get talking to the guy. Does he give you ‘A’s for free?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. “No, he gives me ‘A’s because I’m good at English.”

Dewees frowned. “Alright then, if you’re so good at English, how do you spell antidisestablishmentarianism?”

Gerard stared at Dewees.

Dewees stared at Gerard. “Go on, spell it,” he said.

“I-T,” Gerard said smartly.

“Oh man, that was clever,” Dewees laughed. “An asshole move, but clever, I will admit. Maybe you really are good at English.”

“Of course I am.”

“Why’re you in the special class then?”

“I have,” Gerard said carefully, “a lot of disorders, and stuff.”

“Huh. Hey, d’you know Pete Wentz? He’s in your class, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Gerard said. “Why?”

“I’ve seen him with your sister a lot.”

Gerard choked on his own saliva, then recovered himself, and grabbed Dewees’ collar. He gritted his teeth. “What?”

Dewees’ eyes bulged. “They were just talking. Jesus. And I only saw them a few times.”

“Where?” Gerard hissed.

“At one of those stoners’ parties. Y’know? Not that I go to those often. I think he invited her or some shit.”

“But Wentz is a fucking dickhead.”

“No, dude, he was really nice to her. Like a proper gentleman. He defended her and everything when these jocks called her a tranny.”

Gerard loosened his grip on Dewees’ collar, and after a few moments, let go. “Really?”

“Yeah, he fuckin’ totalled the one dude’s car. It was great.”

“Huh. Are they dating or something? I thought she’d have told me.”

“If I were her, I wouldn’t have told you. Jeez. You didn’t need to practically strangle me.”

Gerard stiffened, realising how he’d lost himself. “I’m really sorry about that, fuck. I kinda snapped. But Pete Wentz? Seriously? He’s a fucking bitch, why would she want to hang out with him?”

“He was really, really nice,” Dewees insisted. “He bought her flowers and everything.”

“Really?” Gerard scrunched up his face. He was having serious trouble understanding what was going on. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Dewees nodded. “I mean, I used to think he was a bit of a prick too, but then I thought about it and he’s never really done anything wrong, y’know? He’s just sort of annoying.”

“Seriously fucking annoying,” Gerard said emphatically.

“Seriously fucking annoying,” Dewees agreed, “But he can also be seriously fucking nice when he wants to be.”

“Oh.” Gerard scratched the back of his neck contemplatively. “My sister is dating Pete Wentz. Oh god, that’s a thought.”

“I didn’t say she was dating him.” Dewees rolled his eyes. “Just looks like they like each other.”

“They’re dating, I’m sure of it,” Gerard sighed melodramatically, trying to sound theatrically weary. Quietly, he was quite glad that the topic of conversation had been diverted from his relationship with Mr Iero, and he was hoping he could stay clear of that particular theme for the rest of the art trip. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite that lucky.

\----

Gerard did not reply to Mr Iero’s first email. He did spend a great amount of time considering replying to the second email, however _—‘I miss having you in my class, I mean. Your work is of a very high standard :)’_ — but in the end decided that he was dwelling on it too much and that he would just speak to Mr Iero in person when he returned home.

After the third email, Gerard started to feel just a little bad for ignoring Mr Iero. He was clearly lonely, especially if he was stooping so low as to purposely contact Gerard, of all people.

Gerard ‘reluctantly’ replied to the email (he put on quite a show of his reluctance to Dewees to make it extra clear that he and Mr Iero weren’t fucking) with a detailed recount of everything that had happened on the trip so far, excluding all the time he had spent thinking about the way Mr Iero’s hair curled to frame his face, and also excluding that recurring dream where Mr Iero was a not-particularly-brave knight and Gerard was a princess and Gerard had to rescue him from this really metal dragon with eight rows of fangs and fire coming out of its eyes (fuck, Gerard should really draw that sometime). Gerard sort of liked the way Mr Iero looked in the dream. He sort of liked when Mr Iero called him his princess. Maybe these were all hints that Gerard was getting a little too emotionally invested in the man, but he chose to pay them no heed, and continued to tell himself that Mr Iero was just a cool teacher. He wasn’t in love with him or anything.

He wouldn’t ever dare voice his thoughts. He didn’t need to. Technically. It wasn’t until Mr Iero confessed that he’d had a shitty week by himself (and honestly a shitty month overall) that Gerard started to really consider admitting how much he’d missed the man’s company himself. Especially as Dewees wouldn’t shut up about the lack of wifi in every café the class ate in. He fucking missed civil company.

Wifi had not held nearly as much importance in Gerard’s mind as it had in Mikey’s. She retreated to the internet to escape from people to talk to more people, and to Gerard, the entire process seemed rather an exercise in futility. Mikey never liked being directly sociable though; she could never pick up on all those subtle signs and silent languages that neurotypical people seemed to speak in like a second tongue. Gerard didn't see social signals either, but he had learned to document and take advantage of other passages into people's heads. For most, reading people was automatic, and responding in a socially appropriate way was ingrained habit. Gerard put focus into coming off as just the right ratio of charming and strange in the right situations—although it was neurotypicals that were the strange ones, really.

The social system was hideously useless and biased against totally arbitrary elements, but everyone seemed so desperate to keep it the way it was. Gerard despised the way people scorned him for attempting to drip feed them thoughts of destruction, and his hate drained him, and the modern world's brittle and contradictory system made him sick, but it allowed him to crawl inside people's heads through social barriers no one had ever seemed to think to cross, leaving him to toy with others' minds as he wished; rearrange thoughts to build them and ruin them.

Gerard wished he could rearrange Mr Iero’s mind so he wouldn't be lonely anymore. So he wouldn’t hurt anymore.

But Mr Iero was special. And in order to be special, you have to be different, and in order to be different, you have to be wrong. At least the two of them were together in their wrongness.


	7. Chapter 7

Frank fucking missed the kid. He missed Gerard's stupid smile and his stupid brilliant mind and his weird aversion to standing up. He was determined not to contact him again though, after the first impulsive email he sent. Jesus, he was never drinking vodka again. He had to keep himself in check. He sounded like a goddamn paedophile, and the last thing he wanted was to lose his job at the only school in New Jersey that would take him.

Frank knew he was different to most people, but it was supposed to be in a punk way, in a good way, not a fucking paedophile way, and he was pretty set on proving that. He supposed that the reason he was thinking about Gerard so much was that he was the only student in any of Frank's classes who had disappeared for the art trip. It was to be expected; Frank took all of the misfit classes, the overflow kids, and they all seemed to have very few interests other than being top of the social ladder, least of all, fine art. It was probably because Gerard was missing that Frank was thinking of him. He added something interesting to the class. Something interesting to mark, and not because it was terrible quality.

The trip was ending tomorrow though, so Frank supposed that all of this weird overthinking of his relationship with a random kid would stop, now that everything would go back to normal. Frank had a tendency to think about things a little too much when they were missing. (When he'd lost his phone, all he could think about all day was what he could be doing with his phone if he had it—even though he a rarely looked at his phone, and was pretty certain that if he wasn't counting on some incredible guy giving him his number extremely soon, he wouldn't even have a phone.)

But Gerard was even better when he came back. Gerard was refreshed and almost happy, and he had a friend, and he was so excited to show Frank everything he had written and drawn and painted while he was away, and Frank couldn't imagine why he had thought that Gerard would be less interesting in real life compared to in his mind. Gerard always exceeded his expectations.

—

The first few days Gerard was back home were a blur, as was the usual when returning from any trip out of state—or even out of Belleville. Mikey brought him tea periodically; Gerard drank every other cup. Donna didn't force him into going back to school straight away, but didn't really do much to help him feel less jolted from all the change, other than occasionally half heartedly cuddling him when he didn't want to be touched.

Gerard was actually vaguely motivated to go back to school, for once, now that he had Dewees and Mr Iero, but there was something stopping him. For the first few days at least. Relationships always shift a bit after one person has gone away. Things are always different, and Gerard wasn't sure he wanted to face up to what 'different' would mean. He didn't hold out long, though—Mikey managed to nag him just enough to get him out of his room for a dreaded walk (anything to stop Mikey's special brand of bugging, the most annoying thing in the land), and before he knew it, he was standing in front of the school, with a very smug sister at his side.

"Fuck you," he muttered to Mikey, part irritated and part impressed at her for utilising his state of vague disassociation. She grinned, and passed him his pencil case and treasured notebook—he'd thought her bag had looked a little bulkier than usual. He snatched the notebook away and held it to his chest with one hand, and shoved his pencil case into his pocket with the other. But his stupid fucking punk pants had more holes in than an alien sex machine, and the pencil case dropped down through the bottom of the pocket and fell out through the knee. Gerard settled for tucking it under his waistband and looking like one of those unaware people who don't know the universal school laws. It could be worse. He could actually not know the school laws. Sure, he was the weirdest fucking kid in NJ, but at least he wasn't stupid.

—

Gerard was a little bit stupid. He smiled too big at Mr Iero when he ducked into English, and ended up looking even more like one of those assholes who didn't understand the inevitable way of things. He stayed behind after class and let himself get all excited showing Mr Iero his sketches and watercolours from the trip, and telling him how he had done the whole English project without straying outside the syllabus at all, and he could feel himself flushing and getting all shaky like he always did when he was secretly too proud of something.

Mr Iero just smiled, and told him he hadn't expected anything less and that Gerard was a talented art student, but he didn't tell Gerard "you could do better in school if you tried this hard all the time," like his art teacher had. Mr Iero knew he tried this hard all the time. It just only sometimes showed through.

Gerard's sporadic talent was like shining a light through a colander stacked on top of another colander. Only when the conditions were right and he had the right kind of motivation could he reach his full potential and let the light through. Nobody seemed to understand that but him. The art technician he'd explained it to had looked at him like he'd told her there was an alien behind her, and then shuffled off to murmur concerned remarks to the teacher, all the while shooting Gerard odd glances.

It was alright though, that nobody understood these things. Although sometimes the thought of how stupid people must be to not understand the simplest of things made Gerard furious, it wasn't their fault, he supposed, and in the long run it just made him feel cleverer, and there was very little wrong with that.

—

Gerard found Dewees where he told him he'd be: out behind the smokers' door, where Gerard had never dared to go. It wasn't like it was a hotspot for the cool kids, but it was a hotspot for people, stoners and skivers alike, and Gerard wasn't big on people. Gerard thought he'd make it clearer to Dewees as soon as he could that he'd rather they could hang out somewhere less frequented by humans.

But Dewees was unfortunately encouraging, and through some spectacular force, actually managed to convince Gerard to join him and a few other kids who didn't belong to any particular clique at the park in the middle of the night. Fuck, even more strangers. It was supposed to be fun, and although Gerard didn't really understand what was fun about doing something that could get him into trouble, he also didn't understand why it was so troublesome in his mother's eyes. There was a choice; Gerard opted for the option that got him closer to the stars.

(His mother was two towns down with his cousin, Mel, and her new baby, anyway. Gerard wouldn't even have to omit anything, his mom would be too busy fussing over how precious the baby had looked when she got back to ask Gerard how he'd been.)

Precisely nine hours later, the five of them were lying in a heap on Dewees' unnecessarily large coat on the tarmac of the playground, mostly drunk, and entirely freezing. A big guy known as nothing but 'Worm' kept passing out bottles from the paper bag stashed in his rucksack. Gerard was out of it after no less than four sips, which made sense because on at least nine out of ten of his medications had come with a leaflet stating that he shouldn't consume alcohol. Dewees affectionately called him a lightweight, and Gerard absently mused that Myra Willis would take that as a great compliment.

Lindsey, a fawnish girl with dark brown hair and very red lipstick, was nice to Gerard after he went into his vague state of delirium, and gave him some of her dry cereal from a tupperware container, and Gerard told her miserably about his medication. She told him that her girlfriend didn't drink, and suggested that maybe Gerard shouldn't either, if he didn't want to die from liver failure. Gerard thought it over for it a bit, leaning his head back on Dewees' belly, which was acting as a brilliant temporary pillow. "No, I think I'd rather not die. I want to be alive to see Bernie fuck Trump up in the election."

The lanky boy in all pink—Jimmy, Gerard thought his name was—snorted, then wiped his nose, and clapped Gerard over the back with his other hand. "Smart move, kiddo."

"Told you he was a good one," Dewees said; his words slurred a little. He tweaked at the air above him, like he was trying to pluck the stars from the sky. Gerard smiled lazily. The stars were his, and his alone, but maybe he would be willing to share for these guys. He had known them for only several hours, but he was already sure—they were Forever People.

—

Frank's entire face was tense as he pressed his phone between his shoulder and his ear, trying to shuffle the essays on his desk out of the way so he could find his emergency cigarettes. "Look—I know it's not really the time, but—"

"Jesus," Jamia said, her voice muffled down the receiver. She sounded ruffled and exhausted, like he'd woken her up. He wasn't surprised. "It's fucking two AM."

"I _know,_ but I really need—"

"If you're drunk and this is some sex thing, I swear to god I'm hanging up right this second." She sounded like she'd dealt with this sort of shit before. Frank shifted his phone on his shoulder, and sat down, guilt weighing him down a little too much.

"It's not, Jams, I'm not that bad anymore. I just need a damn hug or something, I feel fucking sick."

A crackling sound passed down the phone, and Frank guessed that Jamia was probably sitting up. "Slow down, what the fuck's wrong?"

"All my work's so late, and the principal wants me dead, and that's not even the fucking problem, I'm just fucking—"

"Frank. Frank, hold up. I'm, fuck. I can come over if you want?"

Frank started to feel a little bad for taking up Jamia's time now. She'd been hopeless for Daisy for weeks, and he didn't want to get in the way. "Not if Daisy's over, you don't have to. I'm just." Frank rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "I just." He probably just ought to fucking say it. "I just jacked off to a student."

There was a silence, then a brief thud, probably a door closing. Frank didn't have to see Jamia's face to know that she was giving him The Look. That look she'd been giving him since they were kids. _'I don't fucking believe you.'_

"I don't fucking believe myself either," Frank muttered. "This is a whole new level of fucked up."

"Talk about fucked up. I'm pretty sure you just broke like six laws."

"Please don't make me feel even worse about this."

"This is practically the worst thing you could have done! I don't wanna be a hardass here, but you kind of deserve it."

"Jams," Frank moaned. "It was just a dream and I was all riled up, he was on the surface of my mind, I didn't mean to." Frank gave Gerard's jacket a kick. "Fucking. Fucking Jesus."

"I'm not sure even fucking Jesus would be worse than this."

Frank made a pained sort of sound, and slouched into his desk chair. "And I can't find my fucking cigarettes. Fuck, I need a walk anyway."

"You need to go to church, motherfucker."

"Right," Frank muttered. "I'll stop off at the local church, confess my sins, then get arrested by the fucking priest. Sounds like a great night out."

"Oh, come off it. Priests can't arrest people. And they definitely can't tell on you."

Frank grunted. "Well, I'm not going back to that place. I'm going to the 7/11, you need any cat food?"

"It's past midnight, you goddamn idiot. And you know Daisy's got me stocked. She works at the pet shop."

"Right, right, old habits. I'll just be. I'll be at the 24 hour convenience, then. Wallowing in guilt."

"You have fun."

"I will. While you're lying cozy in bed with your fucking legal girlfriend."

Frank heard Jamia laughing for a second, and then the phone went quiet, and he stuffed it back into his pocket. At least she was trying to keep things light.

—

The guy at the 24 hour place hardly looked happy to see a customer—he was far too interested in watching some all night marketing show for a steam cleaner on the tinny, box-shaped TV mounted on the wall—but he smiled a little when Frank offered to buy him a pack of cigarettes along with his own. "Thanks, man."

"It's cool. You look pretty run-down," Frank said. "I had the graveyard shift once at Burger King in college. Worst decision of my life."

"I can't imagine why," the guy drawled. "What d'you do now?"

Frank handed over a fistful of change, then shoved his hands into his pockets before they started shaking. The guilt was coming over him again. "I, uh, work at the high school down the block. It's pretty nice, I guess."

"Good hours, I bet." The guy tore the receipt out of the printer and stuffed it into the bag with Frank's cigarettes and vodka.

"Sure." He took the bag, and smiled again. "It was nice meeting you, pal."

"You too," he heard the cashier say behind him as he left the store.

It was almost pitch dark out, but the lampposts went a long way, and the moon was up in the sky. Frank could see the stars. He wondered if Gerard was looking out of his bedroom window.

Laughter echoed down the road, and Frank heard the colloquial drawl of Belleville teens coming from the park. Glass clattered against concrete, and then Frank heard Gerard's name, and stopped walking. He went to look closer through the railings—five kids were spread out on the ground by the playground, staring at the stars and passing a bottle around. And there was Gerard, mixed in with all these normal kids, pressed against a pretty girl wearing a short skirt. Frank felt a little sick and knew he ought to leave, but Gerard looked really drunk and sort of pathetic, and none of the kids looked old enough to drive, so he said Gerard's name and started to walk over.

"Mr Iero?" Gerard said, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"

"A little late night shopping," Frank said candidly. "You guys know you're not supposed to drink around here, right?"

A few shrugs and guilty looks went around the group, and now that Frank could see them closer, he recognised them all as students. The big kid with the backpack propped himself up on his elbows and said, "Sorry, sir, I brought the beer."

"It's alright, I just wanna know that you guys are okay, and that you won't be doing this again." He tried not to eye Gerard too much. He'd thought the kid was better than this—but then again, Gerard's judgement was easily swayed when the stars were involved. "I know we're outside of school, but this isn't a good place to be at night, and I want to call all your parents, okay?"

Dewees looked a little like he was going to throw up, and Frank realised he should probably try and salvage what he had said so it didn't sound like he was one of _those_ teachers.

"I won't tell them you did anything wrong," Frank said reassuringly. "Just that it's late, and that it would be safer if they came to collect you."

"But I was gonna take the bus," the boy wearing pink said.

"That's better than being outside, but what kind of people d'you think are going to be out here, getting the bus at this sort of time?"

 _'People like you, maybe,'_ Gerard held back.

Frank collected each parent's number and called them all in turn, but when he got to Gerard, he was refused. "Mom is two towns down," Gerard protested, his voice slightly slurred. "Visiting my cousin. You'll wake her up for nothing."

Frank sighed. "I could walk you back to your house, I guess?"

"It's a half hour walk," Dewees said, pulling a face. "I really don't think he'll make it."

Frank scrubbed at his face. "I'll get the bus with you then."

"Fine with me, if you pay," Gerard mumbled, despite the fact that he had a free disability-issue bus pass. It didn't matter, though. He was testing.

Frank huffed out a laugh, and agreed. Next thing he knew he was sitting at the front of the bus with Gerard, staring at his hands and wondering if he could possibly be doing anything more stupid than this. He was hardly paying attention anymore, tired and vaguely guilty and in need of a smoke. And the next thing he knew after that he was lying in bed at home staring at the ceiling like it had insulted him, and Gerard was asleep on his couch because apparently he was in fact capable of doing something even stupider, and somewhere far, far in the distance he could feel Jamia rolling her eyes with such immense exasperation she could shatter stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took 3montjs 2 write i hate myslef

**Author's Note:**

> please check out my wattpad (sacrebieu) and instagram (kyloamidala) to make my day!! :-)


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